Today, many manufacturers are looking for new ways to promote new and exciting products. For example, many personal care product manufacturers send samples on mailing cards to prospective customers. Additionally, such companies often shrink wrap samples to existing product packaging. For example, a sample of hair conditioner may be shrink wrapped to a package of hair shampoo. Referred to as "cross-selling," these free samples are intended to entice prospective customers to try the sample products and to buy the products in the future.
Presently, it is known to shrink wrap or to use hot glue to adhere samples to cards or packages associated with products. Additionally, several sampler packaging designs have been developed. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,105,116 to Jones et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,234,084 to Hutten, U.S. Pat. No. 4,285,430 to Caunt, U.S. Pat. No. 4,890,739 to Mize, Jr., et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,923,063 to Tararuj, U.S. Pat. No. 4,941,574 to Meehan, U.S. Pat. No. 5,161,688 to Muchin, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,192,386 to Moir et al. All of the above-disclosed methods and designs suffer from inefficiency or prohibitive expense in manufacture or in application with automated materials handling equipment. For example, shrink wrapping and hot gluing require specialized and dedicated application machinery, the application process being inefficient and expensive. Moreover, these methods are inconvenient in that the packaging to which the sample is to be affixed must be brought into contact with the requisite equipment. Each of the methods and designs disclosed in the above-referenced patents are complex and/or not well adapted to mass application to product packaging.
Thus, there exists a need for a cost-effective package for affixing fluid or powder sample goods as well as irregularly shaped objects (e.g., dental floss), granules, and tablets to product packaging, cards, flexible packages, and the like, which may be efficiently mass-produced and applied to such product packaging and cards. Moreover, there exists a need for a package as described above which may be manufactured and applied to packaging using conventional equipment. There exists a need for a method for forming such a package.